 any specific program in particular, but if there's an overall way that you kind of educate and share knowledge, just substitute program with that kind of idea. Like you did mention, it's more of a healing-based module as opposed to like an education facility, but what I do is land-based learning and healing opportunities. My understanding of being an Ishnabekwe is to understand and learn about the gifts that I was given by Creator, and to use those when teaching others, and generally early infancy to even elder stage of life. People have come to access education, whether it be what time of year the animals are moving about, ceremonies, what type of wood is best to use in certain situations, for example, for a fire. A lot of times people come to me to understand about grief and loss and where that's stored in our bodies, and how do we help address what cause that, and work on healing venues to be able to live life to our fullest potential. Part of the responsibility that I was given as Ishnabekwe is that the information that I've been handed down to me from my elders, or that I've learned from being out on the land, is that information isn't mine. There's people that come and ask me to share with them, and to teach or educate some of the things that I've learned, and a lot of times it's just being a witness to the other person's own search for the answer, or search for that education. I'm just like a tool to help guide them to learn what it is that they're trying to find out. I find that from a personal perspective, when I look at my oldest child versus my youngest child, and learning and education that they've done through following our way of life, and what I was shown or taught by our elders, is the youngest one at a quicker age has picked up a greater sense of well-being and understanding, and learns much more rapidly to the natural law, as opposed to what they teach perhaps in kindergarten, but that took 18 years since the first child, whereas I was more focused on sending them to school to follow that Western education system, but that's how long I've been at school, is at least 18 years learning about this way of life and how important it is, and how fundamental it is to our core beings, and I've seen the changes. So you kind of touched on the ages, not really their age, but a grouping of people, so what ages would you have influenced on, I guess? Various times in the past 20 years, it's changed according to need, because right now a lot of Indigenous people and what's current or popular, for lack of a better word, affects different ages, so I did a lot of work with elders at one point when the Western world was focusing on the residential schools, because of course they would have been older. Now there is, I've worked with youth aged 14 to probably 20 when they were trying to discover who they were, but the current education system couldn't or wouldn't teach because there's no legislation that says they must learn who they are, so they would come away from the big city to be grounded, to find out who they were, and began searching whether it be going on ceremony or passing the tobacco just to ask for clarification on things that they might have already heard, and very early on, children two and a half to six years old, and I think that one was probably the most reciprocal where these children would come and want to know and expect to be taught, and sometimes they would have questions that I didn't know, but by the end of that week we had learned together, so there's no, somebody's greater than somebody else in regard to their age. Nice, so when this learning or sharing occurs, how would you describe your approach? There's definitely challenges when you ask questions in that context, because I was taught and shown an old way, whereas nowadays you see people posting maybe on social media, or sending out flyers, or having their own businesses towards what they do. I don't follow that. What I do follow is being out there and active in my community, and doing the things that I know that I'm responsible to do, and people hearing about that and knowing that at any time of the day or night that they would be able to come to where I am or call if they needed that help or wanted to learn. There's some things that we already know that happens. It's not, you're not going to find it written in a textbook. It's, we know when the moon is full, so there's something we do around that time. We know when the sap water starts to run, there's something we do around that time. We know when our thunderbird ceremonies are. We know what to do around that time. So there's no real advertising for that, and you can't ever advertise grief. One of the things I do educate on is preparing for that time when people travel through that western doorway. We don't know when that time is going to come, but the community at large knows that if they want to learn what do we do, how are things going to go? They know that they can come and approach and ask. When you speak about the full moon or the sap running moments where you would be sharing with somebody, is there kind of a flow that you've kind of created to talk about these things that you yourself have kind of put together through time? It changes. Like I can always share how I receive things from my elders or how I receive things through a vision or a creator, and depending on who it is it's coming to ask. This is where sometimes there's that connection of spirit to spirit as opposed to an educator or a student. There's some people that need to have a direct concrete step-by-step approach, and then there's some people that just need to kind of move like water, slow and up and down. But when it comes to teaching or educating, it's really getting to know those people that you are with and understanding their way of learning. There's somebody that had come once and asked and they're deaf. So trying to find a way to communicate and educate with that person, getting to know that person and seeing how what education model would work best so that they were receptive to learning and felt comfortable in asking the questions. For clarification, for me, do you work with indigenous education as part of your vocabulary or do you prefer to name something else? I'm having a real hard time trying to answer these questions in the Western format because a lot of what I do is in that Western format. I don't know how well you'd be able to translate some of the words that I would say. I try, whenever possible, not to use that language and that wording educator and all of those words from that language that was brought here. I like using things like Pema Zuin, our good life. Where did we get that good life? There's teachings and history of oral tradition of how we received this information and how we shared it and how we passed it down. So to call it something, to answer your questions I'm trying to blend the Western vocabulary and try to explain our Pema Zuin, our way of life. It's not always simple. Then perhaps maybe that's something that these researchers that are doing this program can look at. How difficult it is to be in both worlds and to answer a set of specific questions but based from a Western model. When you say our way of life, what are you talking about? The two-legged race. I can't limit it to the red race, the yellow race, the white race, the black. There were four colors of man on that spirit wheel and there was the two-legged, the four-legged. So when I say our, I'm inclusive of that two-legged race. We have a responsibility from whatever part of the world we are to learn about who we are and honor that agreement or commitment that we made with our Creator or God and to live that way and coexist amongst each other peacefully as equals. Sure. Perfect. Yeah, yeah. No, I just, when I'm asking questions, it's helpful for me to know, like, do I keep saying Indigenous education, blah, blah, blah, or when we're talking about our programs, just because I, like, we know each other. I know who the are as you're talking about, but the people in Saskatchewan, Kree folk or Lakota folk, they won't know what it is you're talking about when you say our hour. Right? Right? So just for that clarity, like, there's, I imagine they'll appreciate that because, like, some of the other points that we come across, like, some folks have got frustrated because that Indigenous work keeps coming up as opposed to, well, you're talking to me, right? You're talking to all my ancestors, too. Yeah. You know? Well, I'll share it with you. It's not just Indigenous folk, it's like actual Anishinaabek folk you're talking to, you know? So, like, address me in that way and that kind of stuff, you know? It's that Western influence trying to label us, whether it be Indian, Indian Act, Native, Aboriginal, now it's Indigenous, right? The other side, the Western base, still don't understand. But my five-year-old, he understands. Right. Because he told his brother today when he said, oh, yeah, we're Anish. My five-year-old reminded my older son, we're not Anish. You have to say the word properly. We are Anishinaabe and each syllable means something and talks about who we are. That's amazing. It's neat, it's neat because that really flows into, like, one of the sub-questions, the question one is, like, how do you know what you do is successful, you know? And I think that's a good example. One of many that you might be able to share, you know? But, yeah, like, just in terms of just that idea of the programs or the ways you're a part of and how you get to share and kind of express knowledge as we go down this journey, what other ways can you kind of measure success and what it is that you do? Well, I know that every time I say I'm going to take a break from this and go on a holiday, it never happens. I always get a call. And then I'm reminded about the commitment that I made with Creator before I came down here. Once I became conscious of and once I became aware of what my responsibilities were, what my gifts were, I am bound by that. It's okay to sometimes say no to people. But then I'm the one that has to sit there and think about the, uh-oh, are they okay? What if? What if? So that's one way, is knowing that even when I want to check out for a while, there are still individuals that will seek out because either they've come before or they've heard from somebody else or just know that whatever it is that I share or teach or help with, it's helping, I would imagine. Right, yeah. Like you said the point before, seeing our little people pick up what it is that I do or what we do and carry that and teach others, but also have that courage and bravery to use that voice to speak out and say something that reminds me that, yes, this approach for lack of a better word is working. Can I look you up in some directory and be like, I'm looking for this kind of knowledge to be shared with me? Would I see your name somewhere? No, you might see my name in an article that I was interviewed for on a personal nature, but you won't see, like you wouldn't be able to look me out. And if you wanted to know generally what happens is people get together and they're talking about, hey, do you know anybody that can, and word of mouth would usually say, well, actually, you know what, this person might be able to help you understand. So I think too, then that would be another kind of measure of success too, I guess. Not really success, but more just a measure of, yeah, like if I'm looking for this kind of sharing to happen, you know, you kind of have to establish a reputation that could be another measure of success in quotations, right? You wouldn't be that successful if people weren't talking about it, right? Yeah, like some of these other questions they talk about like you were saying, like very Western kind of approach, like how is it evaluated? Would you do what feedback do you receive? So you kind of talk to that a little bit, like the feedback you would receive would be from other people recommending you. I think the only story I can share that comes to mind clearly about evaluation would be being at an actual licensed business amongst a group of women accessing cultural, traditional services, having that program suddenly cancelled, but having a good majority of that group of women decide that they're going to come and visit me instead to get what they need, because that program was no longer running, but they knew that they felt safe and they knew that there was something that they could learn about working on within themselves if they had come to see me. Sure, yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that for sure. It's funny, it's kind of funny how this this rolls up because frequently I've experienced like go to people and it's like a good kind of segue into the next kind of question because this one this one talks about like we're still under question one, by the way. Question one, E6 because they give you kind of prompting kind of questions to keep the flow going and this one just talks about what challenges have you faced in doing what you do and how have you overcome them to make what you do successful? Well challenges, I've come to understand that everything happens for a reason, so if something were set up to happen and then all of a sudden it didn't happen, there's a reason why it didn't happen. It's just the natural law of things, it just wasn't time or people weren't ready or I had something still to learn or the only barrier that I can think of this one time I was working for a well-known organization and I'd worked there for a few years and youth were coming to see me and you saw a success rate with the way that they had transitioned through using the services and then it came for my evaluation and at that point the human resource department realized that I did not have a degree in social work which of course created a whole series of events and I ended up leaving that organization because I didn't have that piece of western paper even though out of the five workers that were for that department the turnover rate and the success stories came from my end in the office so to speak to the point where I'm still in contact with a few of those youth today who are now young adults because they knew that just because it didn't work anymore we had started this growth process of learning together and whatnot and but yeah that's the only barrier I've noticed is not having that westernized western degree right and it affecting so many lives yeah right versus the lived experience being a knowledge keeper and a ceremony maker and that wasn't recognized in that western world what is and this this is what I was talking about earlier what is indigenous education to you right maybe it said we would talk about what is uh anishinaabek education well anishinaabek education I guess if I had to define it for western terminology I'd say uh it's more of a spiritual sense of education because our education begins before we even come down here and we set up in spirit world and there's things that happen up there that we become to understand and then we make our ways down here so for the western people they understand about birth and life so we're already born with the tools to learn the tools to share the tools to teach but what we have noticed as far as anishinaabek learning is the more influence that other societies like the western society for an example has had with trying to commit genocide on our people or the 60 scoop to take us away from who we are and our family how much of a detrimental effect it's had in that connection to spirit therefore stopping our learning progress or making it difficult to continue with our learning right um we like to use I like to use that term a lot the mad swim that good life what does that mean if you break down the word it would mean something probably more specific but to me um it is having a human experience and our entire human experience is a learning journey and while we're learning we're also teaching the ones that follow after us or the ones that are around us and we just basically want to be a good human being you know the new the new age terminologies give us that tool called the seven grandfathers we didn't have that tool way back when we didn't call it that but I'll make preference to that about having the respect for our life right having having the love for ourselves those things around us speaking our truth through honesty having the courage and bravery to accept things for what they are or maybe having to speak out about certain things one of the key elements to Anishinaabe learning is following those things that were given to us so we were already born into a clan and we were given a name and that name would help us in life about who we are so our learning started as soon as we came into this world like I said before before that even right when we sat in spirit world with creator we learned things up there before coming down we had to choose if we're going to come down and choose who our parents were and I could talk forever and not talk forever but I'm getting barriers here when I'm trying to to speak because some of these things aren't meant for that general population that might have access to the results of this research so trying to keep it as as vague as possible but to give enough information to give the person that might be reading or hearing this an understanding about what our Anishinaabe education or law system looked like it was always there it's not something that was created like the western people that said you must go to school when you're six years old and go to kindergarten and graduate until and then go on to college and then university and now you're done and now you're a functioning community member we were given that birth rate we had roles and responsibilities from the moment we came down here and we always knew what that was and we understood that our learning was a lifetime whether we only live to be six or whether we live to be 94 it was a continual learning and sharing and teaching are there other new age technologies out there that you can pinpoint I don't know about pinpointing because there wasn't for whatever reason that understanding of respect about our ways Anishinaabe ways and a lot of things were openly shared instead of protected it's been picked up by not only Anishinaabe but other societies and they try to claim and make it their own and take these shortcuts to the long process that it sometimes took to be able to understand and learn and teach you you were able to talk about specifically like the grandfather teachings and and how that could be that could be recognized as a new age technology is there another something that carries that yeah on the border of upsetting a few people I have no real knowledge well I can't openly understand and accept what I've been taught about things like the ribbon shirt and the ribbon skirt because we didn't have that and I know that with times are changing and this movement whether it be feminist movement or whether it be non feminist movement people wanting to understand and promote who they were and this type of dress may have been created to help reawaken and reinstill but it wasn't there before before we had what we had right this is something that's new and it's not a bad thing but personally if I was going to work with somebody I would take it a further step and take them back before that dress came and I so and I make ribbon skirts but I've been taught that I have to try and share what I've received so far and in the best way possible but to kind of stick with the guidelines of what was given because our ancestors and they did speak of a time where there'd be this this confusion and a lot of it might set some of us back whereas some of us for example that one child they story told you about might hold on to that older way instead of the lack of a better word washed out version of what it's like to be anishinaabe nice not all that's great for example is to work with some of the questions for for anishinabeg educate in terms of prompting they talk about language how language is is a part of anishinabeg education so what what is the importance then of language our language is everything the language that we spoke breathe spirit breathe life into what it was we were saying there was an understanding for everything in our language even how we break down the words because it talks about and tells a story and it was easier for us to understand that original instruction given to us like itchimanado and it's all in our language and the one thing that the western society will predominantly say that they're the white race they had a certain gift and you know be good if they remembered what that gift was and started to nurture that and allow us or we're still doing it is repicking up revitalizing our language because some of us did lose it i'm one person who lost my language because of a head injury and i've had to go back and pick it back up but when i have to explain things like at the beginning of this interview trying to express the true intention of my answers and what's inside my heart is difficult when i have to use this western language because the words aren't the same that they're it's almost like there's no life in this language that those people created whereas in our language it was it was sacred everything was sacred because like i said there was spirit in it breathe life that it told us what we need to know and just one word two words they're really long words mind you but when you took the time to you knew what it was you know and to a lot of people they think it's difficult but it's not it was actually quite literal like the word for coffee basically says this is hot black water right that that's so simple it's just the influence of the western society and the way that some of us think has made it difficult for ourselves to reconnect to the simpleness of the life that's in our language and speaking about that piece of paper that western piece of paper reflecting on the importance of indigenous foreign language education and a link to someone's future career choice the preparation needed to be able to you talked about living in both worlds for an Islamic education how do you think our youth are being prepared for living in those those two worlds there isn't very much happening there has been changes that i've seen from 20 years ago to today where people are starting to wake up and nurture and foster education or a raise of life with within our youth i know that our ancestors fought for when they created the indian act for education to always be covered because our elders knew that we would have to pick up the tools from that other nation to be able to meet them at the same level at times when we came together so there's definitely the pros to learning and getting that white piece of paper but it should never come at the cost of forgetting who we are and because there's been so much focus on you have to go to school you have to do this you have to you know for our youth a lot of them are still recovering from historical things that's happened to our families right whether it be the residential school of 60 scoop um drug and alcohol abuse that they're still trying to find themselves because their and their their parents or their grandparents lost that so they never received that and the quick fix that i see happening is um funding based models where okay there's money being given to pay for education or to pay for drug and alcohol or to pay for but there isn't enough communication between the ones that want to help these youth or the youth that want to help themself with tapping into going out on a limb individuals like myself who still honor that tobacco like don't pay me to help you help yourself right um there isn't there isn't enough of support out there right now for people for our youth to be able to access and finding out that big chunk of them that is missing but yet they're still dictated to about well you have to do this and you have to do that and if you want to go to school you have to do this but there isn't enough tapping into having them being able to access and coming to understand who they are that's definitely a great yeah well western society taught us that those people don't have a voice but i mean ours is in nishnami we believe everyone has a voice they're all teachers to us but following that module for so long they're taught not to they don't have a voice it's more of a dictatorship you have to do this you have to do this you have to do this i don't i don't think you consider yourself an elder yet more of a knowledge holder perhaps i'm not sure but uh with that kind of hat on you're definitely involved in passing on knowledge from one generation to another are there are there things that you want to make sure are passed on right are there are there things that really really need to have a focus on a to prepare those youth for stepping out into the world you know to get that western education and find that balance that we're all looking for right so are there are there certain stories or or teachings that you feel like you have to make sure i'll start with that word elder our language has different words and you're right i don't care if i live to be 20 uh 200 years old i will never call myself that because that is not our language we have our language and it speaks about what our roles are as people um if there's something i want to pass down i think i'm doing it already and i continue to do it and it starts within the home first and it starts with your immediate family your children your grandchildren to educate them or to teach them or to listen to what they have to teach us from the very beginning and what and once you are following that then there's a circle outside that that could involve your extended family or another circle outside of that that could that involve your community right but what am i doing is living as best as i can to how i may have been instructed to live and that includes passing it down to my children right who hopefully have learned to pass it on to their children right the whole seven generations thing but it's living and being it's not just talking about nishinaabe and claiming to know this it's actually living that way and walking that talk and also reminding about how sacred some of the things about who we are how there's people out there that aren't ready for that so we have to hold on to that sometimes and not share it it's really the only thing you can think of yeah to answer your question oh that's fine that's perfect yeah is there a story or a teaching that you can share with the listeners of this audio recording here i can remember a little girl who was taken away from her family and her community and sold into another nation's family and i remember that little girl being forced to learn religion etiquette education and that little girl never had any ties to who they were apart from one little book that was a children's story book that was written in the language and as that little girl grew up still being forced to attend these institutions to learn or church to experience religion that this young person always knew that they didn't belong where they were and nobody had told this young person that they were different but this person always knew and that young person when they left that family they stopped going to school they developed a hatred towards that way of life and being forced to you must learn you must learn you must learn but that young person learned because they had that reminder of this little book that was written in the language that that was enough for this person even though they were taken away from who they were to shine that light of hope that curiosity well what do these words mean maybe i need to go and find out who i am and find my people and find my place in the world so that young person did that and in that journey to doing that she learned a whole lot more than any education facility could teach her but she also learned that she had to go back and finish school because that by that time she understood that she'd have children one day and she didn't want that psychotherapy itself she wanted to make sure that her children would go to school and have that tool to be able to exist in that world but before they went to school they would stay home and they would learn how the mother had learned about finding out who she was and where she came from first leading by example you could you never finish school mom so i'm not going to school well no there was more to it than that it was learning about who we were and it was that one little shred of language that was written in the book that reignited that spirit to find out you know who am i where is my place in this world that education to be able to sit here and talk to you and answer these horrible questions because that's me obviously but that's the story i want to share you if there's anything in no matter how small and any of the information that i gave you about education in regards to being additional me i hope it reaches you or hope it reaches that person who might be reading or listening but to also understand that we have that responsibility once we find out who we are the ones that come after we have to let them know and it's okay to pick up those other tools as long as we know who we are first and i live and breathe that my youngest one is six well he'll be six soon and he's still not in that western school system he's at home and that young boy can probably name 17 different trees by its bark hello and he could he knows when the fish run and he knows when he can harvest certain medicines and he knows how to take care of each other and he knows how to use his voice now he's ready to enter that western education system thanks again for your sharing oh my gosh you learn something new every day that's the truth i think now our third question yep what then is your vision for your anishinaabe education over the next 10 years what i would like to see is as long as there's laws that dictate to us about having to be in education facilities those laws would definitely need to change but what does that change look like to answer the question i like that individual educational institutes are moving and growing and finding ways to accept and adapt some of the daily happenings that happen within anishinaabek homes and finding a way to model it into some other curriculum or to understand and excuse them from class instead of being absent because they're starting to become aware of how important these things are for anishinaabe education of course learning that western tool but it has to start somewhere so instead of those years that go to let's call it kindergarten oh we have to listen to the child right is the child ready to go to kindergarten right but instead of calling it kindergarten um i would like to see our young people go to school the whole year but not every day but be there for things like we're going to go learn about why and how this app is running now we're going to learn how we used to collect it we're going to collect it we're going to harvest it we're going to learn how to turn it into and that being a mark a degree whatever you want to call it right and then when the next thing comes along in the season that we would do as anishinaabe people to be credited for learning about that you know i have children who have been recently excused from school which is great because it's been a long 20 year fight to get institutions to understand that they should not be marked absent because they're going out to learn how to snare rabbits because as young men it's their responsibility to help provide food for their family right so even learning things like that to be accredited towards because it builds that connection with everything that's out there in creation and with ourselves and somehow find a way to mesh that core foundation with some of the things that they might need to learn according to what they what vision they have for their life right so my one child wants to be a doctor great she's going to that western school great but at what point does the seven years of learning about gathering and harvesting medicines that's worked for people for ever what where does that play in her doctor degree no she has to prescribe her to sew it instead well no let's try and put this oh so our only registered healers and institutions are allowed to do that all right so could I is it as easy to say you want to really breaking down the system that's in place you want to make sure it's inclusive to our our ways i could break it down because it hasn't worked you know we even the most successful niche now they person out there right now with seven different university degrees is still out there searching and trying to find something about themselves because they didn't pick it up when they were younger that system out there is broken and i know that that's why i kept my youngest home it took me that long to figure out that i'm tired of fighting the system that's broken it's being governed by up instead of down and it's not creating that relationship with the ones who have to go there and that could be any race you know i've seen other races get the bad end of the stick when it comes to education and having to go to bat for those under races when i see that this dictatorship of education isn't working for that individual person i would break it all down i would restart all over again i mean the easy answer is let nishnabe people have their own schools and teach the way they want and be accepted and accredited to okay great but you're missing the prophecies and the teachings of our elders that said we're going to have to learn some of these tools to meet them on there so there's aboriginal education strategy going on right now yay everyone's all happy yay great but which one of you is well enough and carry the knowledge to be able to teach our young and nobody's head goes up is that is that something you can address in the 10-year period if there was enough people on the same page and we weren't still all divided because of history we have the power to be able to change things within days but because we are still a nation like others that have been wounded so much from that intervention it will take longer we have elected chiefs that are trying to advocate for certain things and they've been in court proceedings for years but that word elected chiefs following a western model which history is shown to us doesn't work for our people so the cycle just keeps going around until we find out who we are and learn about nationatic education or kree or whatever you're from and become strong in those core values and begin to understand how important is that we know who we are and then stand together in unity you're not going to see a lot of viable changes in your 10-year period you know one of my elders is 96 years old and he's still rolling saying oh my gosh are they still discussing that haven't they changed it yet any last any last point to talk about your vision for the next 10 years i'm leaning really close to just uh moving my family back to the bush and living there and off the land because my boat done was the way the current western system is conducting themselves and imposing on us i'm getting tired i'm getting tired of finding them i know that if i ever went to the bush i'm not giving up but i'm going to be having a better quality of life for the ones in my immediate circle and they'll carry on knowing what it is and i were supposed to be